


Three Parties, Two Introverts and a French Exit

by thepointoftheneedle



Series: Introverts [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: AU, F/M, First Meetings, Happy Ending, Introversion, Journalist Betty Cooper, Mutual Pining, Photojournalist jughead, Strangers to Lovers, They keep meeting but missing each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:48:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23448043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepointoftheneedle/pseuds/thepointoftheneedle
Summary: Introverts struggle with parties.  Jughead and Betty attend three in rapid succession which change their lives beyond recognition.“Not having fun then?” a low voice enquired as she caught her breath.  Her eyes flew open to be faced with the object of her fear and desire.  Jones was perched on a high stool with his sharp elbows on the marble counter behind him.  He wore black slacks, boots and a red shirt which wasn’t so much open necked as simply unbuttoned.  She could see the smooth tan planes of his chest.  She felt herself begin to hyperventilate a little. He was holding a tiny sandwich between a thumb and forefinger with obvious contempt. “You know what Burroughs said about parties don’t you? ”Parties are largely a mistake. The bigger they are the more mistaken they are.””
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Series: Introverts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1690768
Comments: 34
Kudos: 66





	Three Parties, Two Introverts and a French Exit

**Author's Note:**

> A French exit is the term for leaving a party without so much as thanking the host. In some countries it's called an Irish Goodbye or if you're French it's "partir à l’anglaise." You'd better have a good excuse!

#### 

INVITATION #1

> Mr Forsythe Pendleton Jones III and guest
> 
> The New International Journalism Awards Committee  
>  requests the honour of your presence at  
>  The Fourteenth New International Journalism Awards  
>  to be held in the Lincoln Centre Theatre:  
>  150 West 65th Street  
>  New York, New York  
>  at 7.30p.m. on May 23rd  
>  where your work for The New York Times  
>  documenting the effect on a community of a for-profit prison  
>  Is nominated in the category  
>  Best Feature Photography  
>  RSVP Formal Attire

Jug held the thick cream envelope between his fingers for a moment before tearing it open. Physical mail was something of a novelty and this stationery seemed to indicate that he had been chosen as a penpal by either a duke or a 1930’s movie star. Once he opened the missive, he scanned the words quickly, doubted his reading, went back over them again slowly and then sank to his haunches amongst the Amazon packages, bikes and discarded newspapers that furnished the lobby of his apartment building. The NIJAs were a big deal and, if he remembered correctly, there was a cash prize. If it was substantial enough he’d be able to pay Archie back for the repairs on his bike, put aside a few months rent so he didn’t need to stress out about every cent. Maybe he could even help JB out with her tuition. He snatched his phone from his pocket and googled quickly, long fingers dancing across the cracked screen. Fifteen thousand dollars! Fifteen thousand! He couldn’t even imagine the difference that would make to his life. That would be at least three months where he could work properly without having to take some terrible capitalist commission, no more dog photography, no more trite engagement shoots in Central Park. He checked himself before he got too carried away. There would be photographers all over the country, all over the world, opening the same invitation right now. He was nominated but he wouldn’t win, that kind of thing didn’t happen to a Jones. And they wanted him to wear something “formal” whatever that meant. He was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be a flannel, jeans and chucks. He would have to interact with hordes of people he had never met and would have been happy to never meet and what’s more who would be happy to have never met him once his total lack of small talk was demonstrated. He was aware that he had just spiralled from elation to nervous irritation in less than two minutes but an invitation from Arch to go for Friday night drinks had the same effect so it was hardly surprising that some society event would make him crazy. And he was supposed to take a guest. There was Archie but whenever they turned up to events together people assumed that they were boyfriends. He didn’t mind it per se but it was hard to put them straight, so to speak, without coming over as either a homophobic fuckwad or someone so deep in a closet they were practically in Narnia. He ran through a very sparse mental Rolodex of females that he hadn’t offended, bored or alienated for a possible date and came up empty. JB would have been the obvious choice but to get her all the way from Seattle for one evening would be ridiculous. So he’d be going stag to a big, fancy party in some hired, uncomfortable suit to be told that he hadn’t won fifteen grand. Great. 

On the night in question, when his name was announced and the other people at his table turned to him and began to clap and urge him to his feet to go collect the trophy and the check,(the goddamn check!) he almost passed out with shock. He wondered if it was a mistake and he was about to be LaLa Land-ed in front of journalism’s great and good but, once up on the stage, they actually gave him the check as well as some ugly chunk of metal that he resented having to carry about for the rest of the night. He went into some kind of fugue state as he mumbled awkward thanks to his management and to the features editor of the New York Times and scurried back to his place, breathing out as he sank into his chair, running his fingers nervously through his hair. He stared at the check for a while and when his dinner companions asked to see the metal thing he passed it around without being too concerned if it came back to him. Now they were announcing another winner and he looked up in time to see a woman two tables over look up in shock as the MC called out “Ms Elizabeth Cooper.” He stared at her as she stood, his eyes widening in surprise as her legs just seemed to go on forever. She was classically beautiful but there was something else that fascinated him, an expression that revealed a determination and grit that beautiful women rarely seemed to need. She stepped onto the stage and took the trophy with a smile before making a witty speech in which she graciously thanked her previous editor at The Boston Herald for having faith in a story about cults and organ transplants. Jughead recalled that he had read the article. He’d assumed that the writer was an older person. He could hardly believe that this innocent looking young woman had put herself through what sounded like a terrifying ordeal for a story. Now she was plugging her new publication, a magazine he’d never heard of, and waving to her new boss who appeared to be another stunning young woman at her table. 

Throughout the rest of the evening he found himself glancing over at Ms Cooper without intending to, cursing himself for being a stalker and trying desperately to make conversation with people around him without coming off as a weirdo. Small talk was painful to him. Every exchange seemed to rub off a layer of skin and he felt himself becoming smaller and more raw each minute. He knew that it would be rude to check the time on his phone again and so he stood near the open bar, his shoulders rigid with tension, counting slowly in his head, waiting for someone else to leave so that he wouldn’t be the first to go. That was when Elizabeth Cooper came over to him and started saying complimentary things about his work. He wanted to be friendly and witty but that was simply impossible, wearing these clothes in this huge room with no flesh left on his bones after hours of unwanted interaction and so he stared at her lips, her legs and even, to his shame, her breasts and muttered inanities at her. Eventually she had been so horrified by him that she had actually run away. He was almost in tears at his shame and inadequacy and so he grabbed his jacket from the coat check and left, only remembering the metal thing at the last moment and reluctantly swiping it up and taking it with him to clutter up his studio apartment.

#### INVITATION #2  


> Mr F.P. “Jughead” Jones (and guest)
> 
> Ms Veronica Lodge  
>  requests the pleasure of your company at a celebration  
>  at 1006 Vine St, Scranton, Pennsylvania  
>  At 9p.m. on 11th July  
>  to mark the first issue of  
>  “Present” - a feminist magazine  
>  RSVP Cocktail attire
> 
> Veronica looked through the huge pile of invitations eventually finding the one she had been looking for. She swiped it from the pile and strode out to her PA and asked her to reprint it before sending the whole pile to the post room. “Just leave out the plus one Marcie, would you?” She smiled to herself as she stalked back into her office and closed the door.

Betty had decided early on in the evening that the best way to be invisible was to be helpful. She was always uncomfortable in big crowds and this was the biggest, loudest and most raucous crowd that she had ever been part of. So she began to gather the tiny, empty hors d’oeuvre plates and stack them on a tray. It was as if she had turned the bezel on the magical ring. If she could only avoid the eye of Sauron, or Veronica, as she was more generally known, she would be able to scuttle to the kitchen and hide out until most of the guests had drifted home. If she could snag a bottle of the good champagne as she passed the open bar, so much the better.

It was truly Veronica’s night and, while Betty wanted to be there to support her and celebrate their success, her skill set worked much better one on one or in an intimate group. She could be witty and entertaining, so much so that very few of her friends would even know that she was, deep down, an introvert. She enjoyed evenings at cocktail bars and neighbourhood restaurants but by midnight she was exhausted and longed for her bed, a soft blanket and the percussive purring of her cat, Caramel. Tonight’s launch party was a more intimidating proposition entirely. There were at least three hundred attendees, Betty knew this because the spreadsheet of RSVPs was on her very own laptop, along with the frankly terrifying invoices from caterers, decorators and a florist who seemed to have rather an inflated notion of the importance of fresh hydrangeas at magazine launch parties. 

She was also uncomfortable because her own face looked down at her from what seemed like an excessive number of huge poster boards everywhere she turned. “Features Editor, New International Journalism Award Winner, Elizabeth Cooper,” they screamed accusingly. There were, naturally, posters of several of her new colleagues and of Veronica herself, their very first cover girl, editor in chief and proprietor but her own face looming down at her made her feel painfully self conscious. She understood why making a big deal of her appointment was part of the strategy for the launch. The vision for the new magazine was absolutely clear. “Present” would cover current affairs from a female perspective with a special interest in foreign affairs, social justice and the environment. It would follow fashion but take a zero tolerance stance on dangerous representation and would call out publications and fashion houses that endangered the mental health of women by promoting unrealistic beauty ideals. They would commission the best writers and photographers and demand the same respect that publications like Forbes, Time and The New Yorker were afforded. As Veronica was fond of saying, "Present” wasn’t a women’s magazine, it was a feminist magazine.

The other issue that she was having tonight was that she knew that a certain tall, dark and devastatingly handsome features photographer had respondez-ed as he was s’il vous plait-ed. So, at any moment she could be face to face with a man with whom she had been very intimate on many, many occasions but with whom she had only ever exchanged a handful of words. Of course he had never been in attendance when they were intimate and had absolutely no way of knowing the prominent role he had been playing in her imaginative and scandalous fantasy life but if he suddenly appeared from behind one of the ridiculous urns of hydrangeas she would either spontaneously orgasm or burst into tears of shame. She had no way of telling which would be more humiliating. 

They had actually met just once, on the night of her greatest professional triumph. She was credited with averting a potential Jonestown massacre with her exposé of the religious cult that provided transplant organs to wealthy benefactors by brainwashing vulnerable followers into becoming donors. It garnered her a great deal of acclaim and then, to her shock, she was given a major international prize at the tender age of 25. On the night she received her award, the prize for feature photography was awarded to one Forsythe “Jughead” Jones. The photo story for which he was recognised was coverage of the annihilation of a small community by corporate greed when a for-profit prison was built. The images were shocking, poor families evicted from their homes with nowhere to go, forced to live in a kind of shanty town by a dirty river, kids protesting outside their closed school because they’d either have to travel hours for education or drop out to provide cheap labour for the jail. The portrait of an older African American gentleman closing down his diner for the last time with tears rolling down his cheeks as he twisted his soda jerk’s hat in his fists made Betty want to weep in sympathy. She’d been eager to meet the artist who could tell a story so powerfully in images, wanted to discuss the methods he used, to find out what he was working on next. But then she had been introduced to Jughead Jones and Elizabeth Cooper frankly lost her shit over him. She’d never been so powerfully affected by a man before. She’d had boyfriends in the past and she enjoyed sex as much as most people seemed to but she had never felt desire spark and then ignite as it did now just because this man was near her. She was unable to form coherent sentences because she wanted to run her hands through the dark waves of his messy hair, wanted to nuzzle against his neck, wanted him to take her hand, drag her from the fancy reception and then have her in the back seat of a cross town taxi to her apartment. She stumbled through some inane remarks about loving his work and finding his “voice” original and exciting while trying to avoid looking into his eyes because she knew that if she did she would fall forever and never hit the ground. He shuffled a little, embarrassed by her gushing praise no doubt. He said something polite about the cult story and then murmured “You were extraordinarily brave.” She caught a sob in her throat at the earnestness in his voice and fled from him before she did something humiliating, like possibly licking his face.

Veronica found her hiding in the ladies’ room ten minutes later, running her wrists under cold water and refusing to leave. Eventually she had managed to extract the reason for her distress from her friend but failed to take Betty’s plight at all seriously. “I don’t get it B. So you have the hots for a guy. What’s the problem? Get out there, grab your trophy, get the man and have hot award winner sex with him. What’s the hitch?”

“I can’t even look at him, let alone talk to him V. And if I can’t have a conversation with him what kind of a person does that make me? This is just my body wanting him but I don’t know him. What would you think of a guy who did this, didn’t care about a woman’s thoughts or feelings, just wanted to fuck her? I’d hate him. I can’t be that.”

“It’s a totally different situation B. You aren’t going to intimidate him or drag him to your apartment under false pretences and then make him service you under duress like you’re Catherine the Great. You’d just be seeing if an adult man wanted to have consensual sex with you. Why is that a problem? And you might care about his dreams and stuff if you could get past the sex.”

“V, with that guy, I am never getting past the sex.”

“Betty, you overthink to a crazy degree. It’s just lucky that I love you. Come on, put all this to one side and get out there so your peers can laud your great achievements and the guy you are hot for can see how great your legs are in that dress.” But by the time Betty had reemerged from the bathroom, Jones had left the building. She took home her award and cried herself to sleep after picturing his blue eyes and soft lips while she touched herself. 

Now she was in a constant state of high alert. She just couldn’t look him in the eye when almost every night for the last month she had been imagining how he would look when she undressed him. Her imagination supplied a taut, slim body, smooth olive skin and a trail of dark hair from navel to waistband. She’d imagined hooking her fingers into his belt loops and pulling him against her as she lay on her bed, imagined his lips on her throat, her breasts, everywhere. It was shameful that she had found his photograph online and that, more often than she should, she returned to the picture while imagining him calling her up, asking her to go on a date, whispering that he had to make love to her right away, bringing her to crashing orgasms with his fingers. Veronica knew a little of her obsession but not how bad it had gotten and so she had imagined that she was being a good friend when she reached out to Jones’ management. She was starting a new magazine with a news agenda she told them, and she needed serious talent to get it off the ground. She had offered to commission him for a feature that he could devise, an offer that no photojournalist could resist. He would liaise with the features editor Betty Cooper, plotted V, she was a fellow award winner, they must have met.

So even if Betty could avoid him at the launch party, he would be calling her next week to discuss the feature and she would be tongue tied and idiotic. He would imagine that Veronica was employing her out of pity because she was obviously ill equipped to handle a high powered position at a national publication. Perhaps he would end the phone call and laugh with his girlfriend about the simpering woman who couldn’t contribute one original idea. She imagined there must be a girlfriend, or maybe a boyfriend. There was no way the paragon of hotness that was Jughead Jones was spending his nights alone like she did, save for the ever present and only slightly judgemental Caramel.

Betty grabbed the tray of doll sized plates and headed off towards the main house. V had chosen to hire a mansion for her party, striving for a Gatsby-esque vibe with silken gazebos and burning torches outside that made Betty terrified that some eccentrically dressed minor celebrity would stray too close, their hair or gauzy drapery catching fire and ending the evening’s celebrations in horror and roasting flesh like the last days of the Roman Empire. If she could just get into the kitchens unobserved she would be able to regroup and steel herself for the next hour. She scuttled across manicured lawns and stone terraces, finding an open door and slipping inside to stand with her back against a wall, breathing hard and screwing her eyes closed. 

“Not having fun then?” a low voice enquired as she caught her breath. Her eyes flew open to be faced with the object of her fear and desire. Jones was perched on a high stool with his sharp elbows on the marble counter behind him. He wore black slacks, boots and a red shirt which wasn’t so much open necked as simply unbuttoned. She could see the smooth tan planes of his chest. She felt herself hyperventilate a little. He was holding a tiny sandwich between a thumb and forefinger with obvious contempt. “You know what Burroughs said about parties don’t you? ”Parties are largely a mistake. The bigger they are the more mistaken they are.””

“Was this before or after he shot his wife at one?” she enquired with a raised eyebrow. 

“After. But that was actually a pretty small party. Hard to imagine how much worse things could get really.”

“Big parties at least allow you to sneak into the kitchen to hide. If this was an intimate, wife shooting kind of affair, there’d be no way to do that.”

“True. Hi Ms Cooper. I don’t suppose you remember me. We met once before. Jughead Jones.” He dumped the sandwich on the counter and held out his beautiful hand. She stared at it stupidly. She was frightened to take it. What if she couldn’t let it go? 

She gave herself a tiny shake and, gathering her professionalism around her like a cloak, she took the proffered hand and shook and released it emphatically. “Mr Jones, of course I remember.” 

He gave her a slightly uncertain smile and glanced down at his hand. “I, um. Look I think we got off to a bad start that night at the awards. I’m not sure what I was doing…Oh God, that’s a lie. I know what I did. And I’m really sorry about it. I’ve felt like a creep ever since so, I’m really sorry.” There was a flush of pink along his defined cheekbones and he still wasn’t meeting her gaze, his blue eyes cast down under those long dark lashes.

She was confused but she wanted very much to reassure him that he hadn’t been impolite. “Mr Jones, I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. It was an exciting night, I was a little overwrought. You certainly didn’t do anything to offend me. In fact I thought that I was probably rude to you, dashing off like that. Oh…was that why you thought…?”

“I’d had a glass of champagne and I never normally drink so it had made me a little loopy. I suddenly realised that I was gawping at you like an absolute creep and, by the time I’d realised, you’d bolted so I guessed that I had made you really uncomfortable. I cleared out as fast as I could instead of manning up and apologising and I’ve been on a guilt trip ever since.”

“It never crossed my mind that I had been objectified by you. Quite the opposite in fact.” she reassured him. Was it possible that he just hadn’t noticed how he had affected her? “Please don’t give it another thought. Now, Veronica says you’ve agreed to do a feature for us. I’m delighted. Any plans?”

“Jughead please Elizabeth. I’d say Mr Jones is my father but no one calls him that either. I mean, if that’s OK? Unless you’d rather keep it formal?” He was blushing again and she began to suspect that he was looking at his hands or his boots so that he didn’t look at her. He didn’t entirely seem to trust himself. She realised that she very much wanted him to look at her. “I’ve actually got an idea about grassroots community groups. I’ve got a good friend who runs a community centre for underprivileged kids in his town. He gives boxing lessons, feeds them, that kind of thing. I don’t know if that’d be right for your brand though. Now I’ve met Ms Lodge I’m not sure…”

“It’s my commission Jughead and I think it sounds interesting. We want to focus on social justice, be campaigning. There’s no way, these days, to avoid being political is there? We’re either part of the solution or we’re the problem. Oh and it’s Betty by the way. If we’re getting past the formality.” She tilted her head sideways and stepped forward so that she was in his line of sight and the blue eyes were on her, staring into hers, flickering down and then, briefly, closing. He opened them again and fixed them on her face. He seemed to be having some trouble with that and inside Betty whooped and cheered with delight and wanted to pirouette as she had when she was a cheerleader back in high school but that seemed more than a little unprofessional. 

He took a deep breath and swallowed hard. “Talking of social issues, is there any real food to be had at this shindig?” he asked, waving at the long neglected sandwich. “That thing seems to have some kind of tiny fish in it. If that’s not illegal I want to know why.”

“Yeah, the tiny fish sandwich seems to be a growing scourge of the nation. As a campaigning publication perhaps we should include it in the next issue? Was it hunger that drove you to the kitchen then? Or the Burroughs view of parties?”

“Both. I’m not really a party kind of guy. Kerouac said they made him feel sad and separate and that seems about right to me.”

Betty felt like the conversation was hitting its stride. There seemed to be a connection but was he feeling it too? It was light but sort of fizzing with excitement like the champagne that was the only part of this evening that she had been looking forward to. “Wow you are really there for the beat generation aren’t you? Should I expect you to start doing some Ginsberg-y performance poetry soon?”

“Absolutely not. But I guess they were outsiders in a conventional era and I’ve always related to that. I actually started off as a writer but I couldn’t make it work and the photography took off so here I am, a frustrated novelist with a camera and a pretentious habit of quoting better authors.” His self deprecation was endlessly attractive but then she realised that there was almost nothing he could do that wouldn’t be hot.

“And you’re hungry at a Lodge party, which cannot be tolerated.” She smiled at him and looked round the sparkling kitchen for any recognisable foodstuff.

“We could order in I guess. What are you in the mood for?” He suggested, pulling his phone from a pocket.

Betty was not an experienced flirt but she saw her opportunity and decided that she needed to jump on board the innuendo train. She looked meaningfully at him, an eyebrow raised just perceptibly, waiting for him to look up and read the signal. When she didn’t reply he glanced up from the screen, saw her expression and a blush suffused his skin. He was adorably bashful. Then he licked his lips and Betty thought that her internal organs had turned to lava. She gasped with the exhilaration of it.

And then her ‘phone buzzed like an angry mosquito.

“B, where the hell are you?” Veronica hissed. “I’ve got the Chanel head of marketing on the hook- wondering if we’re a good fit for a campaign. I need your award winning journalistic ass here NOW.” 

Betty wanted to reach through her phone, grab Veronica by the pearls and shake her hard but this was a professional function, she had responsibilities and she couldn’t shirk them. The problem was that whatever was passing between her and this incredible man was, like a champagne bubble, intoxicating but so fragile that it would simply burst if either of them tried to grab it. The moment was slipping away as she stared at her phone and swallowed down curses. “OK V, on my way.”

She tried to show with her expression that she was desperate to stay with him in the marble coolness of some stranger’s kitchen even as she began to turn away. “I’m afraid I have to go, duty and the editor in chief calls. I enjoyed meeting you properly.”

She thought he looked disappointed but it was hard to tell if that was just wishful thinking by a girl who had hoped that the evening might be going in a rather different way. She squashed down a mental picture of him lifting her onto one of those marble counters, standing between her thighs, her reaching behind him to pull his shirt off over his head, one of his hands at her throat…That was a fantasy that was going to be in heavy rotation starting tonight. She flushed red and scurried away as he called out after her. “I’ll be in touch next week…about the feature.”

#### INVITATION #3

He’d called just before 9a.m. on Monday morning. “Hi Ms Cooper, Jughead Jones. We chatted at the party on Saturday.” She was taken aback that he could seriously imagine that she hadn’t been dreaming about him ever since. After she had made small talk with Veronica’s supposedly important marketing execs she had drifted back to the kitchen with a tiny hope that he might still be there but he was long gone, just a curling sandwich on the counter to indicate that he had ever been there. But then bright and early on Monday, he was calling her. “I wondered if you might be free on Saturday.” Her heart leapt and she felt a goofy grim emerge on her face. 

“Nothing I can’t cancel. What did you have in mind?”

“Well, you know I mentioned the community centre that my pal runs? It’s their annual fundraiser this Saturday so I thought we could go along and you could see if you thought it would be interesting for your readers.” The grin froze on her face to be replaced by stinging, pricking tears that she absolutely would not let fall. She made her voice brusque and impersonal and hoped that her enthusiasm hadn’t given her away earlier.

“Well, I don’t think that’s necessary. I’m not a micromanager. If you have a vision for the piece I trust you to carry it through. Just send me the files when you have it. We need to get it put to bed by the fifteenth. I imagine you have discussed remuneration via your management?”

There was an alarming groan from the other end of the line. “Mr Jones, are you OK? Do you need help?”

“Of course I fucking need help. How do I keep fucking this up? Fuck! I’m sorry. Look can we make this a blanket apology? I’m sorry for all of the myriad ways that I absolutely fuck everything up. I shouldn’t be allowed to speak. And I fucking hate the phone. Fuck.”

“I’m not sure what’s happening Jughead. How can I help?” She genuinely was concerned that he was having some sort of breakdown.

“Betty, it’s Betty right?” She murmured her assent and he ploughed on. “I don’t know how to behave or be cool or flirt or anything. But I thought there was a moment between us. Maybe I was wrong and I apologise- obviously- as you heard. I wanted to see you and I thought you might agree to go to this thing with me because it’s sort of work and it wouldn’t be weird but now it’s so weird. I really like you. Please tell me what to do now.”

“OK Jughead. I’ll go with you to...the thing. I…I really like you too. Text me the details and I’ll see you at the weekend.” She was scarlet with embarrassment at this declaration but he was clearly never going to read subtle signals so if she wanted him, and God how she wanted him, she was just going to have to be clear and unambiguous. 

She pulled into the parking lot just after seven. The building looked dilapidated and knots of young guys were standing about outside, sharing joints or cigarettes. There was a banner above the entrance which read “ El Royale Fundraiser Tonite!” Betty stepped out of the car feeling glad that Jughead had told her that it was a jeans and sweater rather than a cocktail dress kind of event. As she approached the kids outside one of them yelled “Hey are you Betty Cooper?” When she nodded the guys came over, politely offering handshakes and greetings. “Thanks for coming Ms Cooper. Jug says that if the pictures run we’ll be able to get the plumbing fixed.”

She grinned at their eager faces. “I certainly hope that national coverage will get some donations. I’ve asked our editor to make a contribution too, that might even cover the plumbing. Thanks for the warm greeting guys.”

“Jughead said he’d kick our asses if we didn’t make you welcome. You his girl?” The guys more or less fell over in gales of laughter and puppy dog wrestling moves to cover their adolescent awkwardness. And then Jughead himself materialised from inside the building. 

“You guys are making a disgrace of yourselves. You have to be cool when you talk to a beautiful woman. Suave like me. You kids watch and learn.” He offered an elbow to Betty. “Shall we, my dear?”

“Why thank you kind sir,” Betty affected a southern accent as she took the elbow and they promenaded into the centre. 

He grinned at her. “Thanks for pretending that I ever had a suave moment in my life. You’ve raised my status with the local youth no end.”

“Suave is over rated Jughead. I’ll take honest and straightforward any day, believe me.” She looked up into those clear, compassionate blue eyes and she felt that they were communicating with more than just the words.

“Honest I can do. I can’t promise much else but straightforward is a given with me. Here we are. It’s not pretty but it’s home to some of these kids.”

The main room was decked out with streamers and balloons in a bewildering array of styles and colours. There was a slightly funky smell and large patches of damp on the walls but there was also ringing laughter, lively conversation and a long table groaning under mismatched plates of cheap, brown food. “Ah no tiny fish sandwiches here. I guess this suits you better,” Betty observed. 

“Well yeah, it’s better but still I’d rather be at the movies or something.” Betty couldn’t help the smile freezing on her lips. He realised his mistake at once. As he’d implied he was better at social interaction in person than on the ‘phone. He corrected himself.

“At the movies with you ideally, I mean. I prefer to be alone but I’d like to be alone with you. Is that something that you might be able to agree to?” Betty nodded and bit her bottom lip nervously. “Oh Christ, Betty Cooper. You can’t do that if I’m going to make it through this evening. I’m not trying to sound like a creep but if we’re doing full disclosure, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you in weeks.”

She looked into his eyes as intensely as he was looking at hers and decided to push the flirting. It just had to happen tonight or she was going to lose her mind. “I’ve been thinking about you too. And not just thinking. Dreaming. Well, more fantasising really.” Now he seemed to be trembling as he grabbed her wrist and pulled her down a corridor. One of the boys whooped at them as he barged past but she didn’t care. He pulled her through a door into an office where a holdall disgorged its contents on a sofa. 

“I really like the way you write and I’m pretty much obsessed with your legs. I’m no kind of prospect as a boyfriend, you know I have no social skills and …also…”

“What?” She asked. That had been one of the worst pitches she’d ever heard and yet it had made her burn with desire for him. “What?” She asked again when he just continued to stare at her although she couldn’t help her eyes dropping down to his soft, full lips, wanting so much to bite on them. The word hadn’t fully left her mouth before those lips were on hers, softly at first but with growing intensity as he gained in confidence. A moan escaped her and he seemed to give in to his passion, his tongue against her top lip, pushing gently but insistently. She opened her mouth and he was stroking it over her lips. She couldn’t help imagining that tongue moving across her body and her belly spasmed with lust. She found herself pressing her thighs against him, desperate to meet some resistance. And there was some resistance. He was already so hard, it was all she could do not to reach down and stroke her hand against the front of his jeans in a way that would have scandalised her if anyone else had done it. She tore herself away from him and he looked at her shocked and disorientated and about to apologise but she hushed him. “Jug, we’re in a kids’ centre. There are children here and no lock on that door.”

He looked at her frantically. “We have to stop? Of course, we have to stop. Just give me a minute. Or, actually you’re going to have to give me an hour, a gallon of ice water, and a lot of pictures of sad puppies who need operations or something.” He gestured towards the front of his jeans despondently. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. Let’s get out of here. I’m at the Five Seasons. Is this your stuff? Do we have to go back through the main room?”

“Oh God, look, just so you know, I’m going to marry you. Is that OK? There’s a back way. Here.” He’d thrown his things into the bag and was opening what she had assumed was a closet but actually turned out to be a side door. 

They were running across the parking lot when a voice yelled out, “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend Jug?" and Betty glanced back to see a red headed guy leaning out of the door, grinning widely. Jug offered an unconventional salute without looking back and dived into the passenger seat of the car before they peeled out of the parking lot and into the next stage of their lives, together.


End file.
